Thread: Some razor porn

Originally Posted by Mike Blue

If we left these razors safely in the 1800's, wootz would have made a far more valuable blade than a frameback spine. Practicality would dictate not wasting a legendary material on furniture. As to the false damasceneing via etching...very possible. Pattern welding was a common practice in certain areas of metal working. A piece of old Holland and Holland gun barrel could have easily found it's way into a lot of different kinds of metal working.

As to the cast steels...it is not impossible to have a piece with grain or alloy banding show up. That would look very much like wootz or a laminate depending on the metal working techniques used. That a pattern would show up after some patina develops is not unusual since the etching done to bring out a pattern is merely accelerated oxidation. As long as one part of the mix, whether an alloy or harder crystalline formation, resists the etchant (rust), a pattern will become visible. There was a lot of cast steel being produced in Sheffield for use in cutlery, and used all over Europe and the world. It would take no leap at all to make that connection.

The Wostenholm frameback I'm thinking of went through eBay a while back and didn't have real clear pictures. A bit more refined searching just now turned up this thread where you offered up an excellent tip for using ferric chloride for doing your own etches -- and the blade there was definitely a photo etch.

(This is useful to me because one of my restore projects will require a nice, deep etch like that.)

I hope, it'll be interested to you.
Several notes and facts from the history of Savigny & Co., London.

Thanks very much. So my razor could have been made very early or much later.